Debate Over Gene Patents

Re “Experts Fret Over Effect of Gene Patents on Research,” Feb. 28: I am watching the patent rush for human gene sequence information with increasing concern. It appears that at some time the U.S. patent office began issuing patents for discoveries, i.e., for knowledge, rather than for inventions or ways to utilize that knowledge. While this might have been a reasonable decision on a specific proposal at the time, its evolving use as precedent is now leading in absurd and exploitative directions. Before these matters become unmanageable, the patent office should defer any further patents in this field, and Congress should act to assure that knowledge of the human gene sequence is in the public domain.

As an aside, how can someone else hold a patent on my gene sequence without paying me for it?

STEFEN MALONE

West Hollywood

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Nobody gets it. Not my fellow scientists, not the public, not the press. Go to a drugstore and count the number of miracle drugs that were manufactured and distributed by the government or a university. That number will be zero. Drugs come from drug companies.

If traders who buy the stocks of drug companies can’t profit from them, no drug gets into the marketplace. No patent, no profit. Weaken patent rights and the clock will be turned back 100 years to the time when doctors had all good intentions but not much more.

ALLEN D. ALLEN

Studio City